Servants—Society—Evening Parties
The greatest difficulty in organising a family establishment in Ohio,
is getting servants, or, as it is there called, “getting help,” for it
is more than petty treason to the Republic, to call a free citizen a
_servant_. The whole class of young women, whose bread depends upon
their labour, are taught to believe that the most abject poverty is
preferable to domestic service. Hundreds of half-naked girls work in
the paper-mills, or in any other manufactory, for less than half the
wages they would receive in service; but they think their equality is
compromised by the latter, and nothing but the wish to obtain some
particular article of finery will ever induce them to submit to it. A
kind friend, however, exerted herself so effectually for me, that a
tall stately lass soon presented herself, saying, “I be come to help
you.” The intelligence was very agreeable, and I welcomed her in the
most gracious manner possible, and asked what I should give her by the
year.
“Oh Gimini!” exclaimed the damsel, with a loud laugh, “you be a
downright Englisher, sure enough. I should like to see a young lady
engage by the year in America! I hope I shall get a husband before many
months, or I expect I shall be an outright old maid, for I be most
seventeen already; besides, mayhap I may want to go to school. You must
just give me a dollar and half a week, and mother’s slave, Phillis,
must come over once a week, I expect, from t’other side the water, to
help me clean.” I agreed to the bargain, of course, with all dutiful
submission; and seeing she was preparing to set to work in a yellow
dress parseme with red roses, I gently hinted, that I thought it was a
pity to spoil so fine a gown, and that she had better change it.
“’Tis just my best and my worst,” she answered, “for I’ve got no
other.”
And in truth I found that this young lady had left the paternal mansion
with no more clothes of any kind than what she had on. I immediately
gave her money to purchase what was necessary for cleanliness and
decency, and set to work with my daughters to make her a gown. She
grinned applause when our labour was completed, but never uttered the
slightest expression of gratitude for that, or for any thing else we
could do for her. She was constantly asking us to lend her different
articles of dress, and when we declined it, she said, “Well, I never
seed such grumpy folks as you be; there is several young ladies of my
acquaintance what goes to live out now and then with the old women
about the town, and they and their gurls always lends them what they
asks for; I guess you Inglish thinks we should poison your things, just
as bad as if we was Negurs.” And here I beg to assure the reader, that
whenever I give conversations they were not made À LOISIR, but were
written down immediately after they occurred, with all the verbal
fidelity my memory permitted.
This young lady left me at the end of two months, because I refused to
lend her money enough to buy a silk dress to go to a ball, saying,
“Then ’tis not worth my while to stay any longer.”
I cannot imagine it possible that such a state of things can be
desirable, or beneficial to any of the parties concerned. I might
occupy a hundred pages on the subject, and yet fail to give an adequate
idea of the sore, angry, ever wakeful pride that seemed to torment
these poor wretches. In many of them it was so excessive, that all
feeling of displeasure, or even of ridicule, was lost in pity. One of
these was a pretty girl, whose natural disposition must have been
gentle and kind; but her good feelings were soured, and her gentleness
turned to morbid sensitiveness, by having heard a thousand and a
thousand times that she was as good as any other lady, that all men
were equal, and women too, and that it was a sin and a shame for a
free-born American to be treated like a servant.
When she found she was to dine in the kitchen, she turned up her pretty
lip, and said, “I guess that’s ’cause you don’t think I’m good enough
to eat with you. You’ll find that won’t do here.” I found afterwards
that she rarely ate any dinner at all, and generally passed the time in
tears. I did every thing in my power to conciliate and make her happy,
but I am sure she hated me. I gave her very high wages, and she staid
till she had obtained several expensive articles of dress, and then, UN
BEAU MATIN, she came to me full dressed, and said, “I must go.” “When
shall you return, Charlotte?” “I expect you’ll see no more of me.” And
so we parted. Her sister was also living with me, but her wardrobe was
not yet completed, and she remained some weeks longer, till it was.
I fear it may be called bad taste to say so much concerning my
domestics, but, nevertheless, the circumstances are so characteristic
of America that I must recount another history relating to them. A few
days after the departure of my ambitious belle, my cries for “Help” had
been so effectual that another young lady presented herself, with the
usual preface “I’m come to help you.” I had been cautioned never to ask
for a reference for character, as it would not only rob me of that
help, but entirely prevent my ever getting another; so, five minutes
after she entered she was installed, bundle and all, as a member of the
family. She was by no means handsome, but there was an air of simple
frankness in her manner that won us all. For my own part, I thought I
had got a second Jeanie Deans; for she recounted to me histories of her
early youth, wherein her plain good sense and strong mind had enabled
her to win her way through a host of cruel step-mothers, faithless
lovers, and cheating brothers. Among other things, she told me, with
the appearance of much emotion, that she had found, since she came to
town, a cure for all her sorrows, “Thanks and praise for it, I have got
religion!” and then she asked if I would spare her to go to Meeting
every Tuesday and Thursday evening; “You shall not have to want me,
Mrs. Trollope, for our minister knows that we have all our duties to
perform to man, as well as to God, and he makes the Meeting late in the
evening that they may not cross one another.” Who could refuse? Not I,
and Nancy had leave to go to Meeting two evenings in the week, besides
Sundays.
One night, that the mosquitoes had found their way under my net, and
prevented my sleeping, I heard some one enter the house very late; I
got up, went to the top of the stairs, and, by the help of a bright
moon, recognised Nancy’s best bonnet. I called to her: “You are very
late.” said I. “what is the reason of it?” “Oh, Mrs. Trollope,” she
replied, “I am late, indeed! We have this night had seventeen souls
added to our flock. May they live to bless this night! But it has been
a long sitting, and very warm; I’ll just take a drink of water, and get
to bed; you shan’t find me later in the morning for it.” Nor did I. She
was an excellent servant, and performed more than was expected from
her; moreover, she always found time to read the Bible several times in
the day, and I seldom saw her occupied about any thing without
observing that she had placed it near her.
At last she fell sick with the cholera, and her life was despaired of.
I nursed her with great care, and sat up the greatest part of two
nights with her. She was often delirious, and all her wandering
thoughts seemed to ramble to heaven. “I have been a sinner,” she said,
“but I am safe in the Lord Jesus.” When she recovered, she asked me to
let her go into the country for a few days, to change the air, and
begged me to lend her three dollars.
While she was absent a lady called on me, and enquired, with some
agitation, if my servant, Nancy Fletcher, were at home. I replied that
she was gone into the country. “Thank God,” she exclaimed, “never let
her enter your doors again, she is the most abandoned woman in the
town: a gentleman who knows you, has been told that she lives with you,
and that she boasts of having the power of entering your house at any
hour of night.” She told me many other circumstances, unnecessary to
repeat, but all tending to prove that she was a very dangerous inmate.
I expected her home the next evening, and I believe I passed the
interval in meditating how to get rid of her without an
_eclaircissement_. At length she arrived, and all my study having
failed to supply me with any other reason than the real one for
dismissing her, I stated it at once. Not the slightest change passed
over her countenance, but she looked steadily at me, and said, in a
very civil tone, “I should like to know who told you.” I replied that
it could be of no advantage to her to know, and that I wished her to go
immediately. “I am ready to go,” she said, in the same quiet tone, “but
what will you do for your three dollars?” “I must do without them,
Nancy; good morning to you.” “I must just put up my things,” she said,
and left the room. About half an hour afterwards, when we were all
assembled at dinner, she entered with her usual civil composed air,
“Well, I am come to wish you all goodbye,” and with a friendly
good-humoured smile she left us.
This adventure frightened me so heartily, that, notwithstanding I had
the dread of cooking my own dinner before my eyes, I would not take any
more young ladies into my family without receiving some slight sketch
of their former history. At length I met with a very worthy French
woman, and soon after with a tidy English girl to assist her; and I had
the good fortune to keep them till a short time before my departure:
so, happily, I have no more misfortunes of this nature to relate.
Such being the difficulties respecting domestic arrangements, it is
obvious, that the ladies who are brought up amongst them cannot have
leisure for any great development of the mind: it is, in fact, out of
the question; and, remembering this, it is more surprising that some
among them should be very pleasing, than that none should be highly
instructed.
Had I passed as many evenings in company in any other town that I ever
visited as I did in Cincinnati, I should have been able to give some
little account of the conversations I had listened to; but, upon
reading over my notes, and then taxing my memory to the utmost to
supply the deficiency, I can scarcely find a trace of any thing that
deserves the name. Such as I have, shall be given in their place. But,
whatever may be the talents of the persons who meet together in
society, the very shape, form, and arrangement of the meeting is
sufficient to paralyze conversation. The women invariably herd together
at one part of the room, and the men at the other; but, in justice to
Cincinnati, I must acknowledge that this arrangement is by no means
peculiar to that city, or to the western side of the Alleghanies.
Sometimes a small attempt at music produces a partial reunion; a few of
the most daring youths, animated by the consciousness of curled hair
and smart waistcoats, approach the piano forte, and begin to mutter a
little to the half-grown pretty things, who are comparing with one
another “how many quarters’ music they have had.” Where the mansion is
of sufficient dignity to have two drawing-rooms, the piano, the little
ladies, and the slender gentlemen are left to themselves, and on such
occasions the sound of laughter is often heard to issue from among
them. But the fate of the more dignified personages, who are left in
the other room, is extremely dismal. The gentlemen spit, talk of
elections and the price of produce, and spit again. The ladies look at
each other’s dresses till they know every pin by heart; talk of Parson
Somebody’s last sermon on the day of judgment, on Dr. T’otherbody’s new
pills for dyspepsia, till the “tea” is announced, when they all console
themselves together for whatever they may have suffered in keeping
awake, by taking more tea, coffee, hot cake and custard, hoe cake,
johny cake, waffle cake, and dodger cake, pickled peaches, and
preserved cucumbers, ham, turkey, hung beef, apple sauce, and pickled
oysters than ever were prepared in any other country of the known
world. After this massive meal is over, they return to the
drawing-room, and it always appeared to me that they remained together
as long as they could bear it, and then they rise EN MASSE, cloak,
bonnet, shawl, and exit.